What kind of Alternate History game would you be interested?

The keys to any period are:

- Enough active, engaged and properly mature players, who all share the same idea of what type of game it is
- A clear set of rules
- Games systems for diplomacy, military action, economics, technology, espionage and more
- Mechanisms in place to prevent power gaming and rushing for their own sake, but that are still flexible enough to make it alternate history
- Historical literacy and just plain literacy
- Players who can get into their roles and actually post/play enough
- A sense that it is a cooperative roleplaying game, not Risk or Monopoly
- Never fall into the trap of wasting player manpower through multi player nations
- Recruit, recruit, recruit, but get the right type of chaps. Beware of people who just want to watch the world burn
- You will definitely want a staff of multiple GMs
- Don’t rush in, but prepare stats, systems, rules, guidelines and strategy

I would strongly, strongly advise against an ahistorical starting scenario, as people tend to get lost; it lacks the same appeal; and there are not the resources available out there.

As a related point, the further back in time you go, not only the less players generally know, but the less accustomed they are to communicating in the manner of the time.

I’ve played in 10 or so between 2007 and 2014. It lead to some lasting friendships on the one hand, but intense upset on the other - some people can’t cope with losing and regard any innovative thinking or alternate history as cheating.

Having said all that, my view of the best periods is the following:

1815: Quite open at the end of the Congress of Vienna, no immediate war and a wide open world for colonisation, but clear systems needed for that and for technology. It also requires patient players
1900: Close enough to WW1, but no immediate war. Deft diplomatic touch is needed, as is the right player in Germany; in all the Great Powers, really. Playing out WW1 needs a very good land warfare and sea warfare system, as well as an industrial production system. It needs an initial air warfare system as well.
1933/34: The Big Kahuna. WW2 involves science/tech, industry, land, air and sea warfare systems, espionage and resistance and a really decent player base. Some of the big secrets of the war are OOC common knowledge and that raises issues.
Post WW2/1945: Big issues of politics, decolonisation, low intensity war, diplomacy, nuclear weapons and more. Needs the most players, even from the get go. Biggest problem is that there are really only two Commie bloc powers or nations worth playing, making for a big imbalance that really gets to some people psychologically.

Anything before then is too early.
Anything after then is usually to wrapped up in modern day politics and inevitable acrimony.

1783 is very American-centric and small in scope. It immediately rules out having anything of an economic, industrial or really cultural edge, due to lack of easily available data for individual colonies, even the larger ones.

1950s Africa is very limited, given the very small numbers of independent states until 1960.

My advice would be to go for 1815, 1900 or 1934. However, it would not be something to write up in a week if you would like it to last at all.

I do have a lot of systems on my website and various other places; we even ended up with an automated battle processing tool scripted with Python for WW1. I’m willing to dig them out, depending on what you’d like to do. I can further offer my time to help set up and organise.

For 1815 you need the following minimum: Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, Austria, Spain, the USA, Ottomans
1900: Britain, France, Russia, Germany, AH, Italy, Japan, USA, China, Ottomans, Spain and at least 3 minors
1934: Britain, France, Germany, USSR, Japan, Italy, USA, China, Poland, Spain and at least 6 minors